Using RAID 0 as backup?

4964 Views 9 Replies 8 Participants Last post by brshoemak, Aug 29, 2013

KillThePancake

Discussion Starter · Aug 13, 2013

I was wondering how viable using two drives in RAID 0 would go as far as backup. I may change it to 0+1, but my only worry is what do I do to transfer files over to a new pc if need be? I would do it over my network, but my network speed is massively slow for some reason, it would just be easier to move the drives over to the new pc and copy the files. But won't the new motherboard not recognize the RAID array? I'm just a bit confused on that part of it :/ Any help would be appreciated.

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hammong

· #2 · Aug 13, 2013

#1 - RAID is not a data backup scheme.

#2 - RAID 0 is disk striping. It has NO REDUNDANCY AT ALL. If any disk fails in the array, you lose the entire array. RAID 0 is used to increase performance, nothing more.

#3 - RAID 1 would be disk mirroring, which makes an identical copy of Disk A to Disk B and keeps them in sync. It's still not a backup, but at least it provides some redundancy in case of a disk failure.

Generally, you can't move the RAID set from one motherboard to another and expect it to work. It MIGHT be able to moved if the chipset manufacturer is the same, e.g. Intel Z68 to Intel Z77 might work, but it's not guaranteed.

Whatever you do, make sure you get a viable data backup plan in place. That might include purchasing a external hard drive and backing everything up to that -- then disconnecting that external drive and storing it in another place (like your office, a neighbor's house, in a fireproof vault in another room, etc.). If your house burns down or has a flood with your PC and the backup in the same room, you don't have a good backup plan.

Greg

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KillThePancake

Discussion Starter · #3 · Aug 13, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by hammong

#1 - RAID is not a data backup scheme.

#2 - RAID 0 is disk striping. It has NO REDUNDANCY AT ALL. If any disk fails in the array, you lose the entire array. RAID 0 is used to increase performance, nothing more.

#3 - RAID 1 would be disk mirroring, which makes an identical copy of Disk A to Disk B and keeps them in sync. It's still not a backup, but at least it provides some redundancy in case of a disk failure.

Generally, you can't move the RAID set from one motherboard to another and expect it to work. It MIGHT be able to moved if the chipset manufacturer is the same, e.g. Intel Z68 to Intel Z77 might work, but it's not guaranteed.

Whatever you do, make sure you get a viable data backup plan in place. That might include purchasing a external hard drive and backing everything up to that -- then disconnecting that external drive and storing it in another place (like your office, a neighbor's house, in a fireproof vault in another room, etc.). If your house burns down or has a flood with your PC and the backup in the same room, you don't have a good backup plan.

Greg

Non redundancy doesn't really bother me, mainly because it's not-so-important stuff (Random expendable files, music, pics, etc.) The problem is I'm using more disk space than I can back up, but I can RAID together the millions of HDD's I have laying around and create a backup drive. But, I see that is no longer a viable option. Thank you for the advice

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moonslug

· #4 · Aug 22, 2013

I would really advise against relying on any RAID as an ultimate backup solution, and even if you had to, RAID 0 is kinda the exact opposite of what you want. RAID 0 is

double danger

, if one drive fails, you lose the rest of the drives in the array too. This type of vulnerability is inadvisable in a system whose purpose is to be storage. Furthermore, for any sake of reliability, mixing vendors/drive types as you just mentioned is also a bad idea -- drive timings, speed, error handling, will all vary across vendors, and will make it very easy for a random drive to drop from the array. I'm afraid what you're trying to do isn't advisable if reliability is your priority.

What I would do, if I wanted to utilize a bunch of old random drives, is to put them in a JBOD array on a controller that can handle that. It will give you a pool of data, but not one that you should rely on for backups, unfortunately (and also understand that it may be lost at any time).

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WOD35

· #5 · Aug 28, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by moonslug

I would really advise against relying on any RAID as an ultimate backup solution.

wait, you wouldn't recommend RAID 1 as a backup? 2 exact copies of the same thing? I can see dealing with a failed drive in a RAID 5 array being a headache... but not RAID 1? Maybe it's just a waste of space?

If you are using these drives in your PC as local large storage, then yeah, go ahead and RAID 0 the heck out of them, but have them backed up to NAS (large, slow, non-raid)

instead of RAID 0+1, make the +1 slow and on network, no need for it to be high speed too. Then you get the + redundancy and the speed locally and the storage space for network backups

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Sean Webster

· #6 · Aug 28, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by WOD35

Quote:

Originally Posted by moonslug

I would really advise against relying on any RAID as an ultimate backup solution.

Click to expand...

wait, you wouldn't recommend RAID 1 as a backup? 2 exact copies of the same thing? I can see dealing with a failed drive in a RAID 5 array being a headache... but not RAID 1? Maybe it's just a waste of space?

If you are using these drives in your PC as local large storage, then yeah, go ahead and RAID 0 the heck out of them, but have them backed up to NAS (large, slow, non-raid)

instead of RAID 0+1, make the +1 slow and on network, no need for it to be high speed too. Then you get the + redundancy and the speed locally and the storage space for network backups

RAID 1 is not a backup. RAID 5 is not a backup, RAID 6 is not a backup. NO RAID array is a backup. Backup is only when you have data in another place away from the original.

You can easily have a corrupt file on the RAID array and if it is mirrored real time you will not have another copy to revert to.

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nleksan

· #7 · Aug 29, 2013

I am going to assume here, but I think Sean is saying that RAID, when properly implemented, is only one tier of a MULTI-TIERED system for backups.

To break it down...
RAID (mirror, parity, parity + striping, and striped+mirrored) should only be used as a first stop, in-machine, fast access pseudo backup.

You don't ever depend on a RAID array to keep data safe, but rather you utilize it as a temporary holding zone.

The data should be transferred to an external hard drive or NAS as quickly as possible, at which point any critical data exists in three locations but only 2 physical locations.
From there, any important data should be put on an external hard drive and/or (but really just and) one or ideally multiple thumb drives for critical data.

Keep the external drive in a safe, and keep the thumb drives off site (one in car, one at work, one at girlfriends house), rotating as needed.

Only then are you even somewhat safe.

If the data doesn't exist in at least three different PHYSICAL LOCATIONS, it doesn't exist.

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WOD35

· #8 · Aug 29, 2013

So for a house if you wanted to do nightly full disk backups of 3 computers, you would have the NAS JBOD, and only RAID 5 the local drives on each PC if you were worried about losing a drive during the day and the work that occurred during that day, otherwise go RAID 0 in local PC for performance?

Would you ever RAID 5 the NAS? It seems to make more sense than to RAID 0 NAS. IDC how long my backups take in the middle of the night, but RAID 5 would allow 1 disk to fail. However, if one of the disks were to fail in a JBOD, the machine who's backup it stores is likely well and fine and I can just get a new backup from it? but then the same could be said for all the computers in the house, so why not just RAID 0 all the drives in the NAS and make backups as well as video streams etc. faster? If you wanted to use the NAS for PXE install of slipstream W7 and other OS wouldn't RAID 0 help up to your connection speed?(<~125MB/s for GbE?) Maybe have a separate RAID 0 array for PXE boots and streams and a JBOD or RAID 5 array for backups in the same NAS? Also schedule the RAID 5 array to take nightly (or weekly) backups of the (much smaller) RAID 0 array aswell.

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noobhell

· #9 · Aug 29, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleksan

I am going to assume here, but I think Sean is saying that RAID, when properly implemented, is only one tier of a MULTI-TIERED system for backups.

To break it down...
RAID (mirror, parity, parity + striping, and striped+mirrored) should only be used as a first stop, in-machine, fast access pseudo backup.

You don't ever depend on a RAID array to keep data safe, but rather you utilize it as a temporary holding zone.

The data should be transferred to an external hard drive or NAS as quickly as possible, at which point any critical data exists in three locations but only 2 physical locations.
From there, any important data should be put on an external hard drive and/or (but really just and) one or ideally multiple thumb drives for critical data.

Keep the external drive in a safe, and keep the thumb drives off site (one in car, one at work, one at girlfriends house), rotating as needed.

Only then are you even somewhat safe.

If the data doesn't exist in at least three different PHYSICAL LOCATIONS, it doesn't exist.

Pretty sure he meant is that a mirrored drive != backup. Backup is a file reserve where you have all older files, which were deleted or modified. If you modify a file on a RAID array, it will delete the last, unmodified file. You'll never have the older version again. If a virus wipes your drive, you're stuck with two empty drives, while if a virus won't affect a backup.

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brshoemak

· #10 · Aug 29, 2013

I would also suggest Crashplan and as additional (not replacement) backup method. It's like $5 month (less than a single fast food meal) for unlimited storage - I currently have about 1.5TB backed up.

While I have a RAID10 array (again RAID and backup don't belong in the same sentence) I backup to Crashplan and locally to an external NAS. For my really important files - like legal and financial documents I have Dropbox (free) installed on my laptop, home server, wife's laptop and also on one of my parents computers a couple states away just in case a meteor strikes my house while all the computers are there (and hopefully we aren't).

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